My Treadmill Tumble

So, funny thing; I’ve been running for 20 years now and if I am following the guidelines set forth by the ecard above, I have never had a workout worth mentioning on social media; that is until Thursday of last week.

It is pretty hard to mess up running on a treadmill, but I managed to do it (my friends and family will not be surprised, I’m not what you would call graceful). I was about 6 miles into a 8.5 mile run at my local Gold’s Gym and everything was going great. My legs felt good, my breathing was not labored, and I was enjoying the original Rocky on the cardio cinema. Then it happened. The carefully double knotted laces on my right shoe came loose. This has happened to me countless times over the years, but this time, my loose shoe lace landed perfectly under my left shoe immediately stopping all forward momentum and sending me falling toward the moving belt below. My ribs and forearms broke my fall as I grasped the bars underneath the digital display for dear life. As I hung there, my knee, shin, and ankle were all being scraped by the moving belt below. Each attempt to rise to my feet only made the friction from the belt worse. Finally, I resigned myself to my fate and let go. I slid off the belt and landed on my knees at the base of the treadmill. Even though I was in pain, my first reaction was to look around the dark cardio cinema to see how many people had just witnessed my treadmill tumble. After seeing one lone runner at the back of the room, I jumped back onto the treadmill as if nothing had ever happened and finished the last couple miles of my run.

Over the years I’ve been asked over and over why I run instead of playing baseball, basketball, football, soccer, or any a number of other sports that are more popular to the general public that distance running. My answer has always been very quick and to the point; because I do not have the coordination to play any of those other sports well. My athletic abilities top out at the ability to put one leg in front of the other. After the experience of this fall on the treadmill, I may have to start saying that simply putting one leg in front of the other stretches me to my limits. It’s a sad but true story.

Sorry for the picture of my pale hairy leg. Don’t act like you’re not impressed. Look at that quad muscle! 😉

nickbernard110
· May 5, 2014 at 8:25 pm

Albert Mitchell
· May 5, 2014 at 8:04 pm

This is a first. I have yet to do this, but I am not putting it past myself. I find that when I run watching the cinema I often get off-centered on the machine, making myself step half on the belt half off. Are you up for some trail running? I am slowly working up to being able to do trails of a decent length again.

nickbernard110
· May 5, 2014 at 8:26 pm

Albert… I have not been running on a trail in a long time. Let’s chat after I finish the Ogden Marathon on May 17th. I am prone to rolling my ankle on trails and I don’t want to take any risks. As this post makes clear, I’m not graceful.

Suz
· May 6, 2014 at 12:36 am

nickbernard110
· May 6, 2014 at 1:22 am

Moni
· May 23, 2014 at 2:47 am

Thankfully not me personally but had the lady next to me go down about 2 weeks ago. I was able to jump on my rails, hit her stop and jump back on w/o missing a beat! (I have fallen running from 2nd to 3rd in softball…bounced up like a ball out of humiliation)

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